early morning, Carmita. I feel a little worse for wear, could you make me a strong coffee? Use that Colombian blend you got last week.’
‘All gone, your friend Taylor drank most of it at the weekend.’
Mildly irritated, Weston snapped, ‘Use any kind of coffee, Carmita, just make it.’
Muttering under her breath, Carmita left the room. Weston poked her nose into the cellophane wrapping, jumping back with a sharp intake of breath when she saw all the flowers were dead and shrivelled, brown-stained lilies. She hated lilies. They reminded her of death, and of her father’s funeral when her mother had filled the house with them. Nonchalantly she tore the accompanying card off, thinking that Martin the commissionaire had probably forgotten to deliver the flowers to her apartment. It wouldn’t be the first time, and she made a mental note to question him about it on her way out. Slowly she moved towards a large white sofa situated in the centre of the room. As she did so, her eyes wandered over the pristine elegance of her apartment, checking for dust. Moving a vase a millimetre as she passed a table, she registered the absence of the Aubusson rug that was supposed to have been delivered from the specialist cleaners two days ago. Weston loved order, was fastidiously tidy and obsessed with her own inimitable sense of style: understated and expensive. Whenever her friend Beth came to the apartment, she always said that she was afraid to sit down in case she looked too messy, or not colour-coordinated with the beige on white, and shades of eau de nil and pewter. Weston was just as unaffected by these playful jibes as she was by her mother’s resentful taunts. It had long been her dream to live on Central Park West, an aspirational thing, something she’d promised herself at eighteen when she’d stayed in a similar apartment owned by the family of a friend from college. It would have been very easy, too easy, to have let her father help her climb the property ladder. Sinclair Kane could well afford it. But Weston had wanted to get there on her own. Setting herself goals and meeting challenges were meat and drink to Weston. And the day she’d moved into the nine thousand square feet of lofty space high above Central Park, she had felt very good indeed. Her only regret? Her father hadn’t lived long enough to witness her achievement.
When Carmita returned with the coffee, Weston was standing next to the vast floor-to-ceiling plate-glass window, the top of her head glowing like a ball of fire in a sudden burst of brilliant sunlight. The maid busied herself moving a pile of glossy magazines to make room for the tray on the coffee table. ‘Will that be all, Miss Weston?’
When Weston twisted around, Carmita was shocked to see her employer’s face. ‘You all right, Miss Weston? You look like you saw a ghost.’
‘Ironic you should say that,’ Weston whispered almost to herself, then without another word she walked past her maid and out of the apartment.
Carmita shrugged, poured herself a cup of coffee and was about to drink it when she spotted a white card on the floor, close to where Weston had been standing. Dropping to her knees, she picked it up and read the message: Freedom is a precious gift.
Carmita propped the card up against the dead flowers before leaving the room.
An hour before Weston received her flowers, Beth also had a gift. She was in her office on Wall Street, a fortieth-floor eyrie with far-reaching views out to Staten Island; on a good day she could see the tourists peering out of the viewing platform high up on Liberty’s crown. On a bad day she tried not to look out of the window.
Five years previously she had commissioned an English interior designer to transform the large floor space. The brief was simple: lived-in, old English money, but not stuffy. And the result was a pseudo turn-of-the-century style, more suited to a crusty old barrister in London than a high-flying female banker in Manhattan. But Beth loved it. She loved the mellow oak-panelled walls, specially distressed to look old; the painted faux bookshelves and the original Chesterfield she’d found by accident in a funky little shop selling Indian artefacts in the Village. It was her inner sanctum, giving her a feeling of such calm it was almost spiritual. It was the only room she’d ever inhabited that’d had that effect. Most of her English childhood had been spent to-ing and fro-ing between a rambling, elegantly shabby country house near Cirencester, St Mary’s Wantage boarding school, and her father’s smart Cheyne Row townhouse in the fashionable end of Chelsea. Until 1968, when her mother had met and married an American TV producer and had dragged Beth, at fourteen, kicking and screaming from her English school to the East Coast American equivalent. The transition had been much easier than Beth could have hoped for. Her American counterparts had welcomed her like a long-lost sister, and she was forced to admit it would not have been as easy if it had been the other way round.
Beth was drinking her fourth double espresso of the day, and thinking that she should give up all toxic substances, when her secretary Julia buzzed.
‘Special delivery for you, Ms Morgan; shall I bring it in?’
‘What is it?’ Beth asked.
‘No idea, it was delivered by Fed Ex, it looks like a gift.’
‘Sounds intriguing, wheel it in.’
A few seconds later Julia entered the office, carrying a box the size of a wine case. It was expensively wrapped in dark brown paper, tied with black ribbon and raffia. Beth exhaled smoke, as her methodical mind started to eliminate the reasons why she should be receiving a gift.
‘It’s not my birthday, thank God, and I can’t think of any good turns I’ve done recently. My husband is pissed with me, so I doubt he’s bought me a present. And I don’t have a lover.’
She began to undo the wrapping, a smile of mild anticipation directed at Julia who looked on eagerly awaiting the revelation. With some ferocity, Beth tore at the paper, standing back with a pant when she pulled it off to reveal the top of a small birdcage. With its yellow handle and red seed tray, it resembled a cage her mother’s sister had kept a budgerigar in when Beth was a little girl. The recollection of opening that cage and letting the bird out filled her mind. She had forgotten all about it until now, but she shuddered as she recalled how all hell had been let loose when the bird had escaped.
Julia took a step closer, her nose wrinkled as she pointed at the cage. ‘There’s something in there.’
Beth stepped forward; she looked down to the bottom of the cage where a baby dove lay in the corner. Its neck was broken; one blood-encrusted eye stared upward. There was a message tagged to the bird’s foot; it said simply: I died inside.
The box was on the hall table, on top of the Washington Post and the unopened mail. It was wrapped in white paper, tied with red velvet ribbon, scarlet red. Kelly didn’t see it until she was about to leave the house at ten after twelve. She was screaming orders at her cook from the hall, and checking she had everything she needed for the charity luncheon she was due to attend in less than fifteen minutes. This was the first meeting of the fund-raising committee; what would it be this time, she wondered. A black-tie ball for three thousand of Washington’s élite? A musical soirée? A masked carnival? A fashion show? All the same repetitive stuff, and as usual Kelly was dreading the tedious debate and the well-meaning, sanctimonious chatter of the other members. She would much rather be having lunch with her friend Sally Oritz, who made her laugh with her crude bar-room humour.
Kelly grabbed the box on her way out and was comfortably settled in the back seat of the car when she examined the package. It was about a foot long, and a couple of inches wide. There was no message tag, and she suspected by the weight and shape it was an orchid or a rose.
The ribbon came off easily, as did the fine tissue gift wrap. Inside was a wooden box, it was midnight blue and resembled a long jewellery case. She lifted the lid; the interior was a lighter shade of blue. At first glance
